The World Food Programme can reach millions of people with aid – if the necessary resources are made available and a ceasefire is achieved
August 14, 2024, By Jonathan Dumont, Abubakar Garelnabei and Elizabeth Bryant
Hundreds of truckloads of World Food Programme aid are being transported to the most famine-affected areas of Sudan this month, part of a massively scaled-up response after famine was declared in a camp for displaced people in the Darfur region.
WFP’s food and cash assistance is initially targeting three million people this month to prevent more people from falling into famine, one of the most horrific consequences of the conflict in Sudan.
In war-torn Khartoum, we recently distributed food and nutritional assistance to the starving population for the first time in months. WFP also supports community kitchens – volunteer groups based in local communities that have become a vital source of food for Sudanese people across the country, particularly in the capital.
“We can still fight hunger and famine in Sudan,” said Marco Calvacante, WFP Emergency Coordinator for Sudan. “We can still do it.”
But reaching millions of desperate people will require unhindered humanitarian assistance, safe crossings and massive financial support. In total, WFP needs US$459 million for its emergency response to support up to 8.4 million hungry people in Sudan by the end of this year.
“We need to end this conflict. We need unhindered access to reach those who need it most,” said Calvacante. “We need to focus the world’s attention on Sudan.”
Famine confirmed
At the end of July, the global standard for measuring food insecurity – the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC) – wasconfirmed famine in Zamzam campwhich houses more than 400,000 displaced people outside the besieged town of El Fasher in northern Darfur.
This was a first for Sudan and only the third confirmed famine worldwide since the introduction of the IPC 20 years ago. There is a risk of famine in 13 other regions of the country in the coming months.
“Our greatest challenge is the continuation of this conflict, which is hampering our freedom of movement and the safe delivery of humanitarian aid,” said Eddie Rowe, WFP Country Director in Sudan. “We call on the parties to cease hostilities immediately.”
Sudan is currently facing the world’s largest refugee crisis. Since it began 16 months ago, war has unleashed a spiral of hunger affecting tens of millions of people across the country. The fighting has devastated Sudan’s food production, wiped out key markets and cut off communities large and small from vital aid. In addition to the heavy fighting, the rainy season is another major setback in aid delivery, with flooded roads grounding dozens of WFP aid trucks.
According to the IPC figures for June Nearly 26 million Sudanese are affected by acute food insecurityNearly 750,000 people across the country face catastrophic food insecurity, the highest level of hunger, and it is estimated that around 730,000 children will suffer from potentially life-threatening severe acute malnutrition this year.
In the Darfur region, WFP Security Officer Khalid Hamdnalla reports encountering scores of hungry, displaced people during a recent United Nations inter-agency humanitarian needs assessment mission.
“We saw entire families, including children and the elderly, who do not have enough to eat. Some have been displaced more than three times,” said Hamdnalla of the people they met. Some of them live in abandoned schools and other government buildings. “Their main demands were food, education, hygiene and health care.”
“The host communities are also suffering from hunger,” he adds, “because they shared what they had with the displaced.”
The UN mission passed through many armed checkpoints, but the biggest challenge was the heavy rains that caused some wadis or seasonal rivers, impassable. “You can’t imagine the road conditions when it rains,” says Hamdnalla. “There are big wadis and the current is very fast – it’s very dangerous.”
Few safe options
At the end of July, WFP was able to reach Sudan’s capital Khartoum for the first time since March, delivering two-month rations of millet, lentils, oil and salt. Many of the people we reached are elderly or otherwise unable to flee the front lines of the conflict. The fighting has left large parts of the city in ruins, including Khartoum’s iconic and vital market in Omdurman – a severe blow to the country’s food supply and economy.
More than 90,000 people in the greater Khartoum area are on the brink of famine; more than a million people are suffering from acute hunger. Nevertheless, people are gradually returning to the capital – not because it is safer there, but because there are hardly any safe alternatives after months on the run.
“They are returning to their homes, but unfortunately they have nothing there – they don’t even have a job because of the war,” says Khalid Mohamed Elbaghir, a volunteer in one of Khartoum’s community kitchens. “So we started providing them with food so that it would be easier for them to stay in this neighborhood.”
WFP is supporting community kitchens like the one in Elbaghir, which provide soup and other basic food items to townspeople. The overall goal is to distribute up to 140,000 hot meals a day. For many elderly and other vulnerable people in the capital, it is the only meal of the day.
“Often two or three days would go by without us being able to go out and get food – sometimes we were stuck in our houses for a week,” says Maya, a former tea seller in Khartoum. “When we tried to leave, we were beaten on the street and robbed of our money and food.”
Other Sudanese are seeking safety elsewhere in the country. Amna Yousif’s family fled their home in war-torn Sennar State. They had to travel eight days on foot or hitchhike by truck before reaching the relatively safe coastal city of Port Sudan. “We got up at 2 a.m. on a rainy night, carrying the children in our arms and walked through the mud all night,” she recalls of her escape.
Today the family lives in a tent on an abandoned property in Port Sudan.
“When I left my house, I let the okra bloom and the Subscribe (mallow) ready for harvest,” Yousif recalled the vegetables she grew – and better times when her family was not hungry. “One of the good things about our village is that if you sow by hand, you eat and drink.”
WFP’s emergency response in Sudan is made possible by contributions from our donors, including the African Development Bank, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, European Commission (ECHO), France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, KS Relief, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malta, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund and the United States of America.
